With Bruce Lee dead and buried, the world needs a new action star and they find one in Lee-alike Bruce Li! He’s just an everyday dude who becomes just as good as Lee — possibly better — with just a few days of training. And he’s going to need it to, because an area advertising agency has put a hit out on him, which seems a bit drastic.
Once a horny cab driver with a passing resemblance to Lee, Li is hired by an unscrupulous producer to become the new face of international kung fu; clad in a Game of Death workout suit, he uses his Yuen Woo Ping-choreographed martial arts to lay waste to a team of sparring partners, including one sent to kill him. He also uses it to make love to a French actress. Ooh-la-la!
The Cosmo Company, by the way, wants to assassinate Li because he won’t fall in line with their advertising wants and needs, forcing them to send world-class skiers, room-service attendants and a guy who resembles a fit Rudy Ray Moore to crack his dragon-looking ass in half, often spectacularly failing.
Li is pitted in one fight after another in the 96-minute runtime, often soundtracked by songs such as “Nobody Does It Better” from The Spy Who Loved Me. With a Rocky-lite finale and a quickie ending, Dynamo might as well have been the Bruceploitation masterpiece of the era, showcasing the nimble Li as a worthy successor with an actual personality to match. —Louis Fowler